5 ms·

Good thing that this is all coming to Javascript. But I can't help but think we're in bizarro land when the main language of the most ubiquitous medium of the 2

Good thing that this is all coming to Javascript. But I can't help but think we're in bizarro land when the main language of the most ubiquitous medium of the 21st century is only getting all that rather basic stuff (at least by all the other languages' standards) in 2015 or something...

btipling 12y ago
I think the slow browser updates that existed prior to Chrome might have contributed to a lull in developing the language. Some of these features can't be fixed for old browsers with a polyfill, but now that updates are happening quicker and there's a lot of excitement around the language I hope we see more of these.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  I don't think there were ever any "slow updates" to Javascript, except maybe in the period of IE5/6 dominance to Firefox 1.0. In the Browser Wars, Microsoft and Netscape competed to add features as fast as possible. Firefox still has many additional features in its JS engine that aren't in ECMAScript (for each, coroutines). I'm more concerned about adding features without fully considering the consequences. When you add a feature to Javascript, it's there forever. Rushed feature dumps are how we end up with things like the Web Audio API.
  - btipling 12y ago
    True, the early period had a furious pace of updates. I guess I was referring to the era of ES6, that lasted a long time. I think Microsoft at one point actually said that IE6 was the final browser and they wouldn't release a new version. IE6 was amazing when it first came out, but it became a blight in the end that hurt more than it helped.
  - arcatek 12y ago
    That's why some features have been postponed from ES6 to ES7
AgentME 12y ago
Everything there besides Proxies and Symbols is already in common browsers, and I can't say I'm familiar with Proxies and Symbols in other languages (not to say some other languages necessarily don't have them, but I don't think most users consider them basic or encounter them often).
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Proxies are like __get/__call in PHP, method_missing in Ruby and the similar magic methods Python has. Symbols are sort of JavaScript's answer to private members. Closest to __ for members in Python.
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    I'm a bit puzzled what symbols are. If you want a unique thing that !== anything except itself, make an empty object. It seems to me: var foo = Symbol("foo") ought to let you dereference via bar.foo vs. bar[foo] (the latter shouldn't even work!) or it's not what it seems it wants to be.
    - btipling 12y ago
      Symbol has other traits beyond just not being unique. Properties added via symbols are not iterated over in a for in and do not show up in calls to Object. getOwnPropertyNames()
    - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
      The point of it is you can implement private properties, as I understand it: function MyClass() { var mysymbol = new Symbol("foo"); this[mysymbol] = 3; } var bar = new MyClass(); bar.foo // this won't work
      - Tloewald 12y ago
        What a convoluted mechanism!
      - 12y ago

btipling 12y ago

I think the slow browser updates that existed prior to Chrome might have contributed to a lull in developing the language. Some of these features can't be fixed for old browsers with a polyfill, but now that updates are happening quicker and there's a lot of excitement around the language I hope we see more of these.

TD-Linux 12y ago
I don't think there were ever any "slow updates" to Javascript, except maybe in the period of IE5/6 dominance to Firefox 1.0. In the Browser Wars, Microsoft and Netscape competed to add features as fast as possible. Firefox still has many additional features in its JS engine that aren't in ECMAScript (for each, coroutines). I'm more concerned about adding features without fully considering the consequences. When you add a feature to Javascript, it's there forever. Rushed feature dumps are how we end up with things like the Web Audio API.
- btipling 12y ago
  True, the early period had a furious pace of updates. I guess I was referring to the era of ES6, that lasted a long time. I think Microsoft at one point actually said that IE6 was the final browser and they wouldn't release a new version. IE6 was amazing when it first came out, but it became a blight in the end that hurt more than it helped.
- arcatek 12y ago
  That's why some features have been postponed from ES6 to ES7

AgentME 12y ago

Everything there besides Proxies and Symbols is already in common browsers, and I can't say I'm familiar with Proxies and Symbols in other languages (not to say some other languages necessarily don't have them, but I don't think most users consider them basic or encounter them often).

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Proxies are like __get/__call in PHP, method_missing in Ruby and the similar magic methods Python has. Symbols are sort of JavaScript's answer to private members. Closest to __ for members in Python.
- Tloewald 12y ago
  I'm a bit puzzled what symbols are. If you want a unique thing that !== anything except itself, make an empty object. It seems to me: var foo = Symbol("foo") ought to let you dereference via bar.foo vs. bar[foo] (the latter shouldn't even work!) or it's not what it seems it wants to be.
  - btipling 12y ago
    Symbol has other traits beyond just not being unique. Properties added via symbols are not iterated over in a for in and do not show up in calls to Object. getOwnPropertyNames()
  - TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
    The point of it is you can implement private properties, as I understand it: function MyClass() { var mysymbol = new Symbol("foo"); this[mysymbol] = 3; } var bar = new MyClass(); bar.foo // this won't work
    - Tloewald 12y ago
      What a convoluted mechanism!
    - 12y ago